Sonos ZP80 review

Features
The ZP80 is of limited use without the remote control, which looks like a dinner tray and features a familiar Clickwheel-esque interface. This lets you navigate through tracks in your music library exactly as you would on an iPod. You can frolic through your music, album art and settings on the controller's bright and clear 90mm colour screen.

You can network up to 32 ZP80s in a single house, and a single remote can control all the players attached to your network. Using the remote, or the bundled software for Mac or PC, you can assign different music to different rooms.

If you want the same song playing in synchronisation across your entire house, the system can be instructed to play the same track on all your ZonePlayers. Regardless of the different distances between the ZonePlayers in your network, there is no obvious delay between the music playing on each one.

The ZP80 will stream music from any computer on your home network that has the Sonos software installed. The WinAmp library on your Sony VAIO in the kitchen, an Internet radio station from the iMac in the playroom, and the CD in your brother's PowerMac G5 can all be made accessible on the Sonos remote control.

All the music on the computers in your network is displayed in a long list sorted by album, artist or a range of other options. What's startling about this is that the whole system can be set up with a few mouse clicks. Considering what the ZP80 is achieving here, we're always impressed that the Sonos software and hardware installation should function so effortlessly.

As with all Sonos ZonePlayers, the ZP80 lets you add tracks to a universal playlist via the software on any computer. This works like an old fashioned jukebox. You add a new track to the playlist and it's scheduled to play in turn. Any user on your Sonos network has the option to supercede the currently playing track and play their own -- but where are their manners?

Performance
We tested a pair of ZP80s on our existing Sonos network. One ZP80 we attached to an Arcam Solo hi-fi using analogue phono interconnects, and one to a Yamaha separates system using digital coaxial.

Auditioning a full-CD-resolution WAV of This Isn't It by Giant Drag, the ZP80-fed hi-fis sounded crisp and confident. On the Arcam the song shone -- the recording sounded indistinguishable from the same CD played on the unit's built-in CD player. Impressive indeed.

As with the ZP100, there was no muddying of the low end and the higher frequencies were accurate and unstrained on both the Arcam and the Yamaha systems.

The software Sonos included with the ZonePlayer functioned seamlessly. Nine computers on our network were streaming music to the ZonePlayer within minutes. The ZP80 is equally happy with Mac or PC, and the software interface is consistent across platforms.

Just when we were getting used to calling the ZP100 'the best digital music system on the market', Sonos has been beaten. Beaten by itself. The ZP80 is the definitive music streaming system and an absolute must for any audiophile who longs for wireless streaming without compromising the sound quality of their meticulously hand-picked current components.

Edited by Mary Lojkine
Additional editing by Nick Hide